The joy of growing old (or why life begins at 46)

Why, beyond middle age, people get happier as they get older: Ask people how they feel about getting older, and they will probably reply in the same vein as Maurice Chevalier: “Old age isn’t so bad when you consider the alternative.” Stiffening joints, weakening muscles, fading eyesight and the clouding of memory, coupled with the modern world’s careless contempt for the old, seem a fearful prospect—better than death, perhaps, but not much. Yet mankind is wrong to dread ageing. Life is not a long slow decline from sunlit uplands towards the valley of death. It is, rather, a U-bend. (The Economist - Dec 16th 2010)

Continua en http://www.economist.com/node/17722567?Story_ID=17722567&CFID=157717038&CFTOKEN=83422072 o el reportaje completo en la revista, en los quioscos.